Players:

Substitutes:

Darren Mellis

Nick Grigorov

Scored goals:

Doron Raviv

Darren Mellis

Gerry Keaty

Report

Opposition was an old club of Joe "creme de menthe" Clarke from back in England, on tour for the weekend. As a result, Joe got to play with them. That left a few spaces in defence, with Appel back in the centre, and Chisholm and Clifford coming into the corners. Mark "MC" Child was back on right midfield, promising to unleash those fearsome crosses, and Rich James made his debut up front because 10 minutes before kick-off there was no sign of Darren "Big Darren" Mellis. He was in a car with Burgmans, who got lost. With no sign of the two lads, the gaffer promised James he could play up front. But then hadn't the heart to tell him he couldn't, when Mellis arrived just in time. I know, I know - thats more like the actions of a Sven than a Bill Shankly. Note to self: Find someone else to deliver bad news on team selections. Anyhow, to the game. Its was 5-1 so I suppose we should have played well. I reckon they had about 4 good players. The rest of them were average to downright slapstick. So the result should ave been even more conclusive. We failed to take advantage of quite a lot of space and convert some glorious bloody chances. The wastefulness was shocking. It took a shot-cum-cross from Child to break the deadlock. They pulled one back from a long-range effort, that Clifford was claiming he had a part in. However the ever industrious Burgmans reclaimed the lead from close ranger, after a pass from Ripley. That took the wind out of their sails and after that we seemed to completely dominate. Which makes it even more amazing that we didn't score more. The lads up front, tried hard, and Ripley ran and ran. So no doubting the effort put in. Just the finishing touches. Half time: Grigorov on for Chisholm and Mellis for James. Within 10 minutes Mellis had made it 3-1. But so many goal mouth chances, crossses into the box, and trhough balls, it was unreal. Mellis did get another one, and Keaty made it 5 just before the final whistle with a long shot after telling himself he wasn't going to waste any more ball by giving it to our forwards. Happy to get a win, but it looks like the forward positions could be up for grabs if they can show a better goals to chances ratio in training. Kind words for Finlay who showed flashes of the reasons he had been dubbed "the new Orr" in some quarters back in the Spring, Child for his important goal that steadied the nerves, and Burgmans for getting the killer goal.